By Michele Jourdan, Director, TLD Partnerships at Donuts Inc.
Having a strong digital presence is critical to the success of any brand, and that’s even more true in the incredibly competitive fitness industry. The biggest fitness brands not only have polished and professional websites, they also use social platforms to engage with customers to build their digital brands.
One of the key elements to maintaining a strong digital brand is the ability to run effective online promotions. The beauty of the digital age is that you can target and communicate with your core customer base with incredible ease. Elite brand owners stay fresh on the mind of their customers by running frequent online promotions to notify them about new products, services, and announcements.
Whether launching a new sales initiative, or running a campaign to recruit new members, here’s a guide to knocking your online promotions out of the park:
Set Goals
Before you run an online coupon or launch a three-month body transformation challenge, decide what the goal is. Do you want old customers to come back? Do you want new customers to come in? Are you trying to increase sales on a particular product or service? Establishing a clear set of goals will help ensure that your campaign is on a route to success.
Be Memorable
If you're creating a microsite (good for large and medium-sized businesses) or just a cool promotional splash page (good for smaller businesses) a not-com domain name is a unique way to grab the attention of your customers and make it easy for them to remember you, find you, and know exactly what you do.
Two not-com domains recently launched that are a perfect match for fitness professionals looking to strengthen their digital brand: dot-fitness (.fitness) and dot-training (.training). These choices allow you to grab a domain name that speaks to your passion for fitness both before and after the dot. A good example of a promotional site is Under Armor’s microsite: www.FastTwitch.training.
If you’re looking to draw more eyes to your social networks, you can even use a domain name that ends with dot-life (.life) or dot-today (.today) to help people remember your link. You can still be extremely creative to the left of the dot, and people will remember exactly where to find you.
Whichever route you choose, the path to register a domain and build your own website has never been easier. Here’s a handy guide for reference.
Be Creative 
Be creative, but keep your look and feel in line with your brand. You've spent time and effort establishing your brand, and your online promotion should reinforce it. At the same time, this is a good opportunity to have fun! Promotions are a good chance to show your brand’s personality and be creative or quirky.
On the site, be sure to include all the relevant info (promotion dates, call to action, limits, exclusions, etc.), but be visual. People love pictures, graphics, and great photography so show them why they should be motivated to participate in the promotion – and eventually, become a long-lasting client or customer.
Along with your new microsite design or promotional webpage, create smaller versions/snapshots of your design in banner form so that you can amplify them on social media, your main website, and paid advertising spaces.
Be Vocal
Promote your new microsite through a dedicated e-blast. Always have a call to action that drives customers to a page where they can redeem your offer and engage with your brand. Additionally, include current customer testimonials to demonstrate your credibility. People love to know what others are saying about your product or service. Word of mouth is stronger than ever in the digital age, hence the success of services like Yelp.
Be Consistent
You've got a great promotion that people will love - now blog about it! And of course no promotion would be complete without shouting about it from social media.
Social platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are great tools to stay engaged and relevant with customers. In today’s digital world with overflowing inboxes, it's expected that some people will miss your emails. That’s why follow-up outreach is critical.
Keep a steady drumbeat of fresh content so that you always have something new to share with your customers. One way to ensure you’re doing this is building a calendar of key topics to blog about and post on social. Look for upcoming events, holidays and news hooks that you can tie announcements to.
Now that you know the key tactics to running an effective online promotion, get out there and take your fitness business to the next level!
Michele's Internet knowledge runs deep. She will work with you to get your business recognized online, better understand the benefits of going not-com, and receive additional services for your business including a website builder, hosting, emails, and more!
Formerly a spokesperson at ICANN, the Internet's regulatory body, she was responsible for communication around the "not-com" application process and rollout. Before that, Michele created Internet access prototypes and business models.
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